Main menu

Monthly Archives: June 2012

Post navigation

Each business day we post links to our favorite news items related to the digital distribution trade, as well as a few tidbits about the assets being distributed. We categorize them accordingly. This is… Pushing Content:

If a product is fantastic, but the user experience is lacking, customers will eventually stop buying. A company selling an asset in the digital age also has to provide a medium in which to do so. In the era of pushing content, the web site, software or app is the new storefront, movie theater or local hangout. And if that storefront is dingy, outdated or just plain ugly, the customers will stop visiting regardless of the quality of the product on offer. Whether you’re selling the latest and greatest widgets, or hawking must-have subscriptions, the method through which you bring the product to your customers is a service.

Are you testing the quality of this service as thoroughly as you’re testing the quality of your product? Similar to real world experiences, customers make judgments on the value of your product based on their interpretation of the experience interacting with your brand. Clients do not want to do business with an organization that has disorganized offices and no one wants to eat a restaurant that is filthy or lacking in service. An outdated website, a poorly designed app, a cumbersome sign-up process, a confusing navigation scheme- all of these are just that, ‘dirty restaurants’, quietly informing customers that they should try elsewhere instead. So much for your widget.

If your shoes are the best but finding my size takes forever, if your movie is awesome but I can’t get it to play on my device, if your social network is the coolest thing but it takes ten forms, a survey and a blood sample to sign up… I simply don’t want it anymore. There will be someone else, maybe not with as awesome of a product, but one that I can actually use and that doesn’t make my acquiring it so cumbersome.

Long-term, successful companies build engaging consumer experiences and great products, instead of focusing on one or the other. Getting a great product into the hands of excited customers is a service. And if that service is not fantastic, the quality of your product simply won’t matter… there won’t be anyone to try it.

Each business day we post links to our favorite news items related to the digital distribution trade, as well as a few tidbits about the assets being distributed. We categorize them accordingly. This is… Pushing Content:

Each business day we post links to our favorite news items related to the digital distribution trade, as well as a few tidbits about the assets being distributed. We categorize them accordingly. This is… Pushing Content:

Company develops innovative method for managing malware attacks by constraining the infection to a virtual node.

Cable companies are enhancing their ability to insert more diverse advertising into On Demand television. Unfortunately, one cable executive states, “The addition of dynamically inserted ads into VOD actually results in a much better user experience… more like linear TV.” Uh… no. No one except cable company executives will feel their user experience will be better with additional linear-style ads.

A video was posted to YouTube documenting abusive children bullying a bus monitor (Warning: this video is NSFW-language, will make you sick to your stomach and possibly force you doubt the future of the human race). In response, the internet raised $400,000 for her to go on vacation and retire.

How many clicks does it take to sign up (and yes, I mean the advertisements that I have to close and the stupid terms of service too)?

How many clicks go to the same thing? How many ways on one page did you try to trick me into visiting that same piece of content? How many clicks will it take for me to email my friends telling them how lame that is?

How many random, frustrated, mother-f-in’ “I’m in a damned cubicle surrounded by people staring at me” clicks does it take close that spontaneous loud-ass media player? How many of the same to close that stupid takeover ad? Oh, and can we all please just agree that top right is the universal location of the close function? You’re not being clever Mr. Designer, you’re being an ass. (Okay, we admit it wasn’t you but rather ‘the business’, driving you to continually sell your oh so “why am I here, I am an artist?” soul. We feel you).

How many clicks to unsubscribe? How many to share, to find out who you are, to (God forbid) try to contact you?

Am I not your most valuable asset? (I heard it on an investor conference call, I do believe). So why not streamline my experience? I like your brand. I want more. And I pay. Why not make that easy?

Each business day we post links to our favorite news items related to the digital distribution trade, as well as a few tidbits about the assets being distributed. We categorize them accordingly. This is… Pushing Content:

Yahoo partners to publish digital motion comics as part of their original content slate.

CBS and ABC continue their catty battle over ABC’s alleged copying of a CBS show. Have to admit it though, Dancing on the Stars does sound more interesting than the currently airing version of the show.